


undertow

by pajama_sama



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Boyfriends, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Shippy Gen, and just a sprinkling of lime......just a hint of zest....., lots of literal fluff too because thomas the cat also stars in this work-- he cannot be stopped, wound care and mentions of needles and stitches and all that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:35:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28643790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pajama_sama/pseuds/pajama_sama
Summary: After a too-close encounter with a Yharnam beast, the Hunter is out of commission and must rest for a time.Alfred supervises his convalescence.[companion piece toriptide.]
Relationships: Alfred/The Hunter (Bloodborne)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	undertow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hauteclare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauteclare/gifts).



> i promised my sweet @hauteclare there would be a continuation, so here it is. the continuation. ashe is her hunter. let the _fluff intensify_.

He does not remember making it to the bed. 

What he  _ does _ remember is nodding off on the divan, the solid heat of Alfred at his side—the rustle of a coverlet being pulled over him, the rub of its velvet on his cheek. Then, darkness: a rare bout of dreamless sleep, restful and uninterrupted. Ashe doesn’t question it. He aches all over, but he can’t recall why. 

He lets sleep overtake him again.

• ✞ •

The next time he comes to, he is lucid, and realizes he is in the guest room Alfred stays in. 

On the pillow—right atop his head—is Thomas, the pads of his paws pressing into Ashe’s skull. It’s not an overly unpleasant feeling, but he suspects it’s the reason why his internal temperature resembles a kettle swiftly approaching a roiling boil.

“Tom,” he rasps, not even trying to lift a hand. His stitches feel too fresh for that.

The only response he gets is a self-satisfied purr, and a tail across the face.

Ashe sighs.

• ✞ •

Thomas has moved approximately one handbreadth away when Ashe opens his eyes again.

The heat is worse. And Alfred is there beside Ashe, his weight causing a dip in the mattress. His features are shadowed, swallowed by the light of the gas lamp flickering on the writing desk behind him. Is it still night? Or did Ashe sleep through an entire day? No… it is eternally night in Yharnam. A cool hand brushes at his forehead, pressing to his temple, then his cheek, and the relief it brings is immense.

“You’re running a fever,” Alfred says quietly, regretful and concerned all at once. “It’s not the cut—it hasn’t festered. Must be because you slept outside. Caught a chill.”

“Of course,” Ashe croaks. “Survive a werewolf, die to a bloody cold.”

Alfred laughs some. “Don’t be preposterous. No one is dying. I shan’t allow you.”

Ashe inhales deeply, shutting his eyes, scarcely able to summon the energy to reply. “Splendid. I leave it to you.”

Everything hurts.

The last sensation he’s aware of is the icy slide of a wet compress on his skin.

• ✞ •

He does not remember the content of any of his nightmares, though he reacts like he does. 

After the final one, he almost tears himself from the bedding, and only the sharp cut of pain from his back stops him from falling clear off the mattress. He stops and clutches his twinging side, hunched over the crumpled coverlets like a wounded animal.

Alfred appears next to him as though out of thin air, but Ashe can’t really hear what he’s saying. In the dark, Ashe thinks he sees the spidering sprigs of  _ something  _ growing on his pillow; but a swipe of his hand dissipates the image, though it does nothing for the dread pounding in his chest.

“Ashe,” Alfred says, his voice sounding far-away, like he’s speaking underwater. “Was it a dream?”

Ashe swallows, trying to rid his mouth of the gritty feeling that pervades it. “A dream,” he echoes. “Yes… it was a dream. Of what, I couldn’t tell you.”

Alfred rests a hand on Ashe’s shoulder, curling fingers into the damp material there.

“Maybe that’s for the best,” Alfred murmurs. “You are positively soaked. We need to get you out of that blouse.”

“You mean  _ you’ll  _ have to,” Ashe rasps. “I couldn’t lift a quill.”

“Worry not. I’ll manage, somehow.”

A quick kiss is pressed to his brow.

He looks on, eyes adjusting to the gloom, too tired to do anything but stay still as Alfred slides off the bed and goes looking for a clean shirt, fumbling through the dresser standing by the doorway.

When he returns, Ashe has already halfway dozed, upright, and the tap to his wrist shocks him into gasping.

“Just me,” Alfred assures him. “Let me get that.”

Ashe hardly twitches a muscle as Alfred peels his top off—the air in the room feels arctic on his damp skin, stretched tight and uncomfortable around his stitches, though that is helped when Alfred uses the bunched-up shirt to wipe the worst of the perspiration away. 

By the time Alfred has managed to maneuver him into the new change of clothes, he’s exhausted; he is lolling forward, looking for a headrest that isn’t there.

“Easy now,” Alfred says, supporting most of Ashe’s weight on the way down.

The pillow is cool and dry—Alfred must have turned it over in the last minute or so. Bless him, Ashe thinks blearily.

It takes some clever moving-around, but eventually they arrive at a comfortable arrangement: Alfred propped up against the headboard, and Ashe laid near him, back-up so as not to aggravate the wound on his shoulder, the blankets drawn carefully around his waist. 

Moments later, a familiar small body presses itself into the crook of Ashe’s neck, tickling him with fluff and whiskers. Thomas makes a couple of circles before settling, kneading at the curve of his jaw, and purring so loud that the vibrations travel all the way down his arm.

“Thank you,” Ashe whispers.

Alfred combs a hand through Ashe’s hair. “Think nothing of it,” he replies. “Sleep.”

And Ashe does.

• ✞ •

Moonlight is filtering through the drawn curtains, the kind that appears only in the earliest stages of Yharnam night. 

Ashe is sore, but from resting too long in the same place. It’s not a bad sort of sore.

“Your fever finally broke,” a quiet voice to his right says.

“Mm.”

Ashe turns his face into Thomas’ haunch—the cat smells of warm fur and the cedarwood floors of the house, and is still slumbering, breathing evenly, paws twined together.

“I had a cat, you know,” Ashe mumbles. 

“What?”

“Have. I have a cat.” He sighs. “Back home.”

“That is possibly the least surprising thing I have learned about you.”

Ashe huffs. It might be his poor excuse for a laugh, might be as close to an exasperated sigh as he can get. “She’s a good cat,” he insists. “She put up with every one of my harebrained misbeliefs as a child, and with great aplomb.”

“She sounds lovely,” Alfred says, totally accommodating. His hand is back in Ashe’s hair, thumb circling over a temple. “What is she called?”

Ah.

“Ashe?”

Ashe wishes Thomas could hide more of his expression. He clears his throat. “I was very young when she was brought to the house,” he begins, by way of explaining. “Barely a boy, truly. I saw her—deep, steel-grey, with those clever eyes. And I thought she needed a special name.”

Alfred doesn’t interject, just listens. Ashe cannot decide whether that is better, or worse.

“So I decided to dub her Malice.”

There’s a tiny pause before Alfred bursts into raucous laughter. The sound spreads like sunshine through the room, and while he’s glad beyond words to hear it, it does not stop the flush from rising to his face and neck.

Alfred tries with no success to stifle his mirth. “Heavens, I apologize, but—”

“Yes,” Ashe says dryly, “my father was highly amused by my choice, too.”

“I’m sure it suits her handsomely,” Alfred tells him. “But what a dour moniker for a child to settle upon.”

Ashe grunts. “There you have it. The very sum of my character:  _ dour _ .”

Alfred leans over him, nose skimming Ashe’s cheek. “Oh, you aren’t so bad,” he says, his tone conspiratorial. “I can attest to as much.”

“I suddenly feel gravely ill once more,” Ashe announces. “I require utter quiet.”

Alfred just laughs, again, and for once the immediate future seems perfectly all right.

• ✞ •

He sleeps less than before from thereon in, but his short bout of illness leaves him bedbound for a few days longer.

Thomas is a constant fixture at every turn, and Ashe cannot pretend he minds. It is good to have company, even if that company is set on grooming his arm within an inch of its life, armed with a tongue like sandpaper. 

“How long has he been doing that?” Alfred asks, handing Ashe a piece of—rather stale, truth be told—bread.

Ashe looks down at where the cat has his wrist trapped, coiled about it in a wonderful imitation of a woolly scarf. 

“About a quarter of an hour,” he says as he accepts the bread. He has a bowl of thin soup balanced precariously on his legs, which is perhaps the worst idea he’s had all week, but he had categorically refused to be fed. He also had not inquired after its origins—best not to know. 

Alfred chuckles. “Strange little beast.”

“They each have their quirks,” Ashe agrees. “Malice is fond of sleeping in my cousin’s flowerpots.”

“How entirely bizarre. Is this normal for felines?”

“I would go so far as to say that the defining characteristic of their species is their propensity to fit themselves into the smallest spaces possible.”

Alfred stares at Thomas with a dawning curiosity. “Fascinating,” he mutters. “I’ve not spent a substantial amount of time around animals of any sort, actually. There… were none, in the Order. Of course.” He reaches out to stroke the back of his knuckles down Tom’s side, gently. “I find myself not minding them as much as I thought I would.”

“I am of the opinion that they make this life worth living,” Ashe says, after he’s swallowed his next mouthful of soup-dipped bread. “There’s nothing quite like animal companionship.”

“I have a feeling you are precisely correct,” Alfred remarks. “Isn’t he, Thomas?”

The answer to that question comes in the form of a bite, and more furious licking. Ashe withstands it with the poise one forms after years of living with a cat, and simply continues to work through his meal.

“Goodness,” Alfred says. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

Ashe smiles a tiny smile. “Not as much as the werewolf.”

• ✞ •

On the fifth day, like he has on every afternoon, Alfred levels a critical eye at the stitched cut on Ashe’s back, while Thomas overlooks the procedure from his perch on a shelf. 

“Does it trouble you still?”

Ashe contemplates that for a moment. “Only if I move too quickly.”

“Another three to four nights should do it,” Alfred concludes. “I am no physician, naturally—but by then, I think it will be safe to remove them. It has sealed up nicely.”

“That’s good to hear,” Ashe murmurs. Especially since, on the night it happened, not even blood vials had really seemed to be helping, other than stopping the hemorrhage in due course. 

“It will scar, however, and badly,” Alfred says regretfully. “Like I said—no physician.”

Ashe shrugs. “Better than being disarticulated like a cow at the butcher’s.”

“Always so pragmatic.”

“No one will see, anyhow,” Ashe says.

“No,” Alfred says, brushing his lips against that gap between Ashe’s shoulder blades. “Not  _ everyone _ will see, and the one that will—well, I have it on good authority that he does not care.”

Ashe coughs to disguise the strange sound that threatens to escape him. “I should hope so,” he goes on, when he thinks his voice will be steady. “Given that you were the man that stitched it.”

“Cruel as ever, good hunter.”

“And you are well-inured to it.”

• ✞ •

On the seventh day, they definitely forget themselves a tad.

It starts with a wholly innocent gesture—Alfred reaching for a book that Ashe could not get without aggravating his injury. 

He is very close, and very warm, and Ashe has been sitting in bed for the last week, unable to move, unable to do practically anything on his own, so he thinks: just a reminder. Just a touch, and that will be the end of it—no fuss. He follows that thread of an idea, putting the book down on a side-table as soon as Alfred gives it to him, instead choosing to pull Alfred down by the collar, until their mouths have met. 

Alfred tastes of the charcoal and mint mixture he uses to clean his teeth after every meal; he is solid and real under Ashe’s hands, and his grasping, searching fingers. It has a soft beginning, their kiss, tentative and sweet. 

They separate for an instant. Alfred’s pale green eyes are focused on him, pupils blown wide. “Ashe…?”

He responds with another tug, a hungrier joining, and then heat blossoms between them, burgeoning into something more. Something sharper and headier. 

A hand grasps at his waist, mapping the edge of his hip bone, trailing down to the inside of his thigh. The caress feels like a brand through the barrier of his trousers. He has never been more irritated by the presence of clothing.

Ashe welcomes the weight of Alfred at his front, the intimacy of being entangled. He’s  _ missed _ this. He pulls harder.

They stumble back together, knees knocking, right into a bookshelf.

And that is precisely when his every thought and fantasy shatters in agony.

He yanks his head away, hissing in pain.

Alfred recoils like he’s been struck, his expression melting into alarm, which is rather comical when combined with his red cheeks and plumped lips. He clasps Ashe’s face between his hands, gaze darting everywhere. “ _ Ashe?  _ What is it?”

“Shoulder,” Ashe bites out, paralyzed by sheer intensity of the discomfort gripping him. 

“Oh.  _ Oh. _ Bother it all—I hope we haven’t torn anything.”

“Can’t tell. Can’t… move.”

“That won’t do. To the chair. We have to get you to the chair.”

“My apologies,” Ashe wheezes as Alfred puts an arm around him.

Alfred turns his head away. “None needed. I—I may have gotten somewhat carried away.”

“I incited you,” Ashe says miserably.

“You can try and convince me of your guilt while I check your back, then.”

He wonders what he ever did to deserve Alfred’s good cheer.

• ✞ •

The damage dealt by their escapade in the library is, thankfully, negligent. 

In fact, it is so miniscule that Ashe believes Alfred’s cautiousness with him thereafter to be almost unneeded; but he can see how it disquiets Alfred to even consider himself the cause of Ashe’s suffering, so he leaves it be. 

Mercifully, on the evening of the tenth day, Alfred seats him on the divan by the fireplace, armed with scissors and a bent needle. 

“This should not be too awful,” Alfred says. “Always easier than putting them in.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Too much of it. Here we go.”

He hears the snip of the scissors, slicing through the knot tied off at the end of the row of stitches—there’s pressure, and some slight stinging—then the odd feeling of string sliding  _ through _ his skin, underneath it. 

“Done,” Alfred states, sounding inordinately proud of himself. “You should not yet wet the area, but… after a week or so, you will be good as new.”

“Thanks to you,” Ashe points out. “I would have been in a sorry state on my own.”

“My word, you confessed to it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That you would have been in a sorry state without me.”

His first impulse, incredibly enough, is to tell Alfred to  _ piss off _ , but that would be exactly what this gigantic, gregarious mountain of a man would want—a reaction far removed from Ashe’s normal repertoire, to make him laugh.

“I do hope you enjoyed hearing it,” Ashe says coolly, “for it’s the last time you ever will.”

“The last time?”

“The  _ last time.” _

• ✞ •

“Alfred,” Ashe breathes against Alfred’s mouth. “It’s been almost a fortnight.”

“It does pay to err on the side of caution,” Alfred says.

Rather late to be saying that—they’re mostly coiled around one another, nearly over the threshold to the bedroom they’ve shared during Ashe’s recuperation. 

“Currently,” Ashe pointedly reminds him, “it is not  _ paying _ at all.”

“Impatient. Are you sure you are—”

Ashe turns, letting his back hit the doorjamb with admirable force. He does not flinch. 

“See?” he says. “I am at the pinnacle of health.”

There is undeniable yearning etched on Alfred’s face. “Well, then… perhaps…”

He reaches for Ashe, seeking, eager, though hesitant. But just as he is about to make contact, he stops, like he remembered an important task. 

“First, however,” Alfred says, spinning on his heel—and Ashe finally sees what was behind him: Thomas, sitting patiently there like a cat-shaped statuette, tail notched around his legs, gazing up at them with massive blue eyes. Massive, blue, knowing eyes. 

Ashe almost laughs.

Alfred pats Tom on the head once, getting a chirp in response. “Goodnight, little beast,” he says.

And then he shuts the door.


End file.
